XML Formatter & Validator

Indentation

Collapse text nodes

Minify

Input

Output

Output: lines

Instant XML formatting

Paste raw, minified or malformed XML and get a clean, indented document in milliseconds. Supports attributes, self-closing tags, comments and nested elements.

Built-in XML validator

Uses the browser's native DOMParser to validate XML syntax. Errors like missing closing tags, invalid characters or malformed attributes are caught immediately.

No data leaves your browser

All processing happens client-side in JavaScript. Your XML is never sent to a server — perfect for sensitive configuration files, API payloads and data exports.

Frequently asked questions about XML formatting

Everything about XML structure, validation and best practices

XML formatting (or pretty-printing) transforms compact or single-line XML into a human-readable structure with consistent indentation and line breaks. This is essential when working with configuration files (like Maven pom.xml or Spring beans), SOAP web services, RSS/Atom feeds, SVG files, or any data exchange format where readability and review matter.

In XML, an element with no children can be written as a self-closing tag (<tag/>) or with an explicit closing tag (<tag></tag>). Both are semantically identical. This formatter uses self-closing tags for empty elements (no child nodes, no text), which is the more concise convention and matches W3C XML recommendations.

XML and JSON both represent structured data but have different strengths. XML supports attributes, namespaces, comments, mixed content (text and elements together), and has a well-established schema validation ecosystem (XSD, RELAX NG). JSON is more compact, easier to parse in JavaScript, and dominant in REST APIs. XML remains the standard for SOAP, RSS, SVG, Microsoft Office formats, and many enterprise systems.

Minify XML when you need to reduce payload size for network transmission — for example in SOAP envelopes, embedded XML in HTML, or machine-to-machine data exchange where readability is not required. Minification strips all whitespace between tags, typically reducing file size by 15–40%. Always keep the formatted version for development; only minify for production or transport.

Format and validate XML

The XML formatter indents XML documents cleanly, checks whether they are well-formed and makes nested structures readable again. That helps when working with configuration files, SOAP responses, sitemaps, RSS feeds or SVG. Instead of deciphering an endless line of XML, you see the hierarchy at a glance. Processing happens entirely in the browser.

Common use cases

Edit configurations: Format XML configuration files to separate elements and attributes clearly.
Inspect API responses: Bring a SOAP or REST response in XML format into readable indentation.
Feeds and sitemaps: Check RSS feeds or XML sitemaps for structure and well-formedness.
Track down errors: Find an unclosed tag or an incorrectly nested element.

How to format your XML

1 Paste your XML into the input field.
2 The tool formats it and checks it for well-formedness immediately.
3 Review any reported errors together with their position.
4 Copy the tidied XML with one click.

Well-formed is half the battle

A formatter does more than produce a prettier layout: it also checks whether the basic XML rules are met, such as correctly closed and nested tags. That catches many errors before a parser stumbles in production. Note that well-formedness is not the same as validity against a schema (XSD/DTD); for that you need an additional check. Because everything runs locally, your documents stay private.

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